It contains the following little gem (yes, in bold, so you can’t fail to see it), dripping with sarcasm:

“And yet, for some reason, certain people simply cannot fathom that they are consuming more calories than they need and are gaining fat as a result of it”

Ironically THAT’s the statement that is at the base of what is truly the “dumbest myth in nutrition”!

Of course, everyone knows the literal truth of it. The real myth in nutrition is thinking that

anything at all has been explained by that statement, and

if a fat person can’t become a thin person, they are to blame.

Does it tell us why a person eats more than they need when they desperately wish otherwise? Isn’t it little more than a pathetic excuse to feel justified in blaming the victim for their stupidity and moral failure while the author of those words can feel so smug and self-righteous?

So rather than the truth, it’s just the opposite. People have been misled into thinking that all they have to do is consume less and/or move more and Poof! their fat will be gone. But, in fact, for the vast majority of people, it’s actually impossible to lose that weight and keep it off without addressing the hormonal derangement that created it in the first place. Statistics are that less than 5% of dieters successfully can take it off and keep it off for more than 5 years.

Usually I can see stuff like that without going ballistic, but just yesterday I read a heartbreaking blog post by someone in the UK, who I don’t know and who I’ll never meet, but who is struggling with his weight and has bought into the lie. So this piece just pushed me right over the edge.

It’s one of the most moronic pieces I’ve come across in a long time. Not only moronic, it comes along with such a patronizing and belittling tone. It’s such a slap in the face to every fat person who’s ever tried and failed to become thin. It’s such a slap in the face to obesity researchers that are struggling to uncover the reasons why children are becoming obese at the age of 8 months.

Does the author of that piece even realize that most really fat people absolutely hate it and would do anything to change it? Anything! Like even having their jaws wired shut. Like having their stomachs surgically reduced to little bigger than the size of a thimble.

If the author had even bothered to do the slightest bit of reading, he would have discovered that there is a hormonal issue at work here that has been thrown out of whack by our western lifestyle and which goes far, far beyond a simplistic calories in / calories out formula. Shame on him for fat shaming! Stupid pieces like this only serve to confuse the issue. It ain’t that simple, folks!

How does his simple calorie formula explain infant obesity? It can’t. This child is not a singularity; it’s happening all over the world:

Obese at 8 months: the baby that already tips the scales at over 3 stone

This is not a person who is just “just eating haphazardly and paying the price for it“as the author of that piece would have you believe.

One in five now take 5 medicines or more:UK Study finds patients risk serious side effects and drug interactions because of the number of pills they are prescribed

The story was about the UK, but I doubt the situation is much different on this side of the Atlantic. Five medicines is a lot, folks! Isn’t it time to re-evaluate? Anyway, that’s the gist of today’s story.

So, I thought I would delve into it further and connect the two stories. What I found kinda surprised me, but I suppose all that says is I’m really still naive enough to trust the people I think are the good guys.

I used to joke that English was a second language for me … my native language was really 8086 computer machine code. And I once had a significant other half-jokingly tell me, “Thank god you’ll never have to make a living based on your communication skills.”

Well, apparently, both of these jokes were not too far off the mark. I’ve had email and PM requests for clarification re yesterday’s post. Sorry if it was too confusing. Here’s some addendum to that post; please refer back to it to refresh yourself on what we’re talking about.

In the text below, the italics are questions and comments; the non-italicized material is mine.

Obesity. The controversy about it rages on. And just like global warming and the Holocaust, it has its share of deniers. … It doesn’t exist; it is only a false category created by definition. … It may exist, but diets don’t work so there’s nothing to be done about it. … It may exist, but it’s harmless. … It exists, but not only is it harmless, it’s actually healthier. … It exists, but dieting is far more harmful than the extra pounds.

For myself, images like those above drive it home that something unprecedented has happened in those 13 years that has dramatically changed the amount of extra pounds we Americans are hauling around. And it’s continuing. That dark southern underbelly of the US hanging down between those two legs continues to get darker. The 2010 CDC map has 11 states in the south at over 30%.

Even more concerning is the ever increasing diabetes prevalence trailing just a few years behind:

I find it flabbergasting that people can be convinced that all those extra pounds are benign, much less healthy, so I decided to look into it to see if maybe I was wrong and they were right. Here’s just the tip of the iceberg of what I found. (Spoiler: it doesn’t support the obesity deniers.)

Sugar! My sweet, most-beloved! Are you really my enemy? How could that be when I love you so much?

That sugar was killing us was the accusation made by its most widely known and harshest critic, Robert Lustig, MD, back in 2009 with his now-viral, first YouTube video. He’s continued the theme with numerous other videos, journal publications, and, relatively recently, a book and very professionally produced YouTube mini-series. To be more precise, he’s really complaining about the “bad” half of what we commonly call sugar: i.e., fructose. But, chances are good if you’re reached this page you already know all that. And, chances are also good, whether you know it or not, that some degree of the dysfunction that many are finally agreeing can be attributed to chronic, excessive fructose intake is already present in your body.

At the time of Lustig’s initial Bitter Truth video release, his views were very alternative to say the least. It was a turning point in time and the very beginning of general public awareness that fructose might be a problem. But always there is initial resistance to a paradigm shift, and I think for most, one lone man crying wolf is almost certain to be ignored. Especially true considering the absence of warm reception in academic circles. For example, witness the 2010 dismissal from the very well-respected Alan Aragon where he summarized with:

I disagree (as does the bulk of the research) with his myopic, militant focus on fructose avoidance. He’s missing the forest while barking up a single tree.

And so, I followed suit. While I wasn’t exactly ignoring Lustig, I didn’t see his position as anything I wanted to publicly support, much less as a call to action. The mainstream-medicine position for years has been that obesity and diabetes are simply a matter of overnutrition – as Lustig says, “gluttony and sloth.” Although Lustig’s indictment did change my thinking enough to cause me to moderate my fructose intake, especially drinks, I admit to being swayed by the pejorative language and negative reactions from the entrenched medical establishment and my obesity-as-sin viewpoint prevailed.

Within the current context of worldwide obesity and the associated problems with diabetes, I thought a hot topic would be the 3 instances where I tried a new diet experiment and accidentally (!!) lost body fat. I’m assuming the lost pounds were mostly fat, because throughout the period, I maintained or gained strength while my skin fold thicknesses (abs, thigh, chest) dropped to new lows (3, 4, 2.5 mm).

On the first two occasions, although not intending to maintain the weight loss, the pounds never came back; apparently I had established a new set point. On the third occasion (right now), I’m actively pursuing weight gain because I want to get stronger.

Experiment 1 – Take note, low-carbers — replace fat with slow-carbs!!

The first of these was started back in January of 2013 on the 15th. I already wrote about it here, but just to summarize, the experiment was to hold protein constant while replacing fat calories with slow-carb calories. I expected to be sacrificing satiety in favor of more carbs, less fat, hoping that it would lower my “bad” cholesterol. So, to be clear, before this experiment I was actually a Gary Taubes fan and believer. My expectation — Thank you, Gary Taubes (Grrr – not!) — was that the extra carbs would:

Just the other day, I ran into this mostly great blog post by one of my favorites, Stephan Guyenet, that discussed a 2012 study supposedly comparing a Paleolithic diet with a conventional coronary care diet. In this case, I have to disagree with both the study author’s and Stephan Guyenet’s interpretation of the study.

Paleolithic diets: Should we eat like our ancestors? PHOTO BY BETHANY NAUERT